“Lewis and Clark were lost most of the time. If your idea of exploration is to always know where you are and to be inside your zone of competence, you don’t do wild new shit. You have to be confused, upset, think you’re stupid. If you’re not willing to do that, you can’t go outside the box.”
– Nathan Myhrvold
“The rain to the wind said,
You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged–though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.”
― Robert Frost
“The essence of faith is an awareness of the vastness of Infinity.”
— Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook
There may be nothing new under the sun (which is, itself, an observation from Ecclesiastes 1:9), but I’m still sometimes surprised by how modern a lot of ancient wisdom reads.
Consider this bit, from Epectitus’ The Art of Living, which could have been pulled from any of today’s bestselling self-help tomes:
“It’s time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become. If you have a daybook, write down who you’re trying to be, so that you can refer to this self-definition. Precisely describe the demeanor you want to adopt so that you may preserve it when you are by yourself or with other people.”
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some excellent advice from Seth Godin:
You will benefit when you tell lots of people your give up goals. Tell your friends when you want to give up overeating or binging or being a boor. Your friends will make it ever more difficult for you to feel good about backsliding.
On the other hand, the traditional wisdom is that you should tell very few people about your go up goals. Don’t tell them you intend to get a promotion, win the race or be elected prom king. That’s because even your friends get jealous, or insecure on your behalf, or afraid of the change your change will bring.
Here’s the thing: If that’s the case, you need better friends.
A common trait among successful people is that they have friends who expect them to move on up.
“Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
– Mark Twain
“Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.”
– Wu-Men
“We grow up hearing that trumpeters blew down the walls of Jericho, that Gabriel’s trumpet announces the will of God, and that the largest and hippest of all animals, the elephant, has a trunk mostly (we think) for trumpeting. These grandiose images shape the classic trumpet persona: brash, impetuous, cocky, cool, in command. Anyone who has ever played in a band knows that if the conductor stops rehearsal because a fight breaks out, if somebody takes your girlfriend, if a tasteless practical joke is pulled, if someone challenges every executive decision no matter how trivial, it’s got to be a trumpet player. That’s just how we are.”
– Wynton Marsalis, Sweet Swing Blues on the Road,
“The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all”
– Sir Richard Branson